Modeling & Texturing Eerie Deep-Sea Creature with ZBrush & Marmoset

Introduction

When you look at a monster, what frightens you more – the fangs, the claws, or that unsettling sense of the unknown inside?

My name is Alexander Pabbo, and I’ve been working as a 3D Artist for over 5 years. Project Monkey_Fish_02 was born from this very question. The idea came during a creature design course, where the goal was to find a balance between realism, horror, and imagination.

In this breakdown, I’ll share the stages of my work, some simple tricks I discovered, and even a rather unexpected culinary inspiration that helped me shape a creature that is both captivating and unsettling.

Background

I came into the world of 3D art thanks to my love for video games and movies. It’s hard to recall the exact moment I decided to pursue this path, but Devil May Cry 3 and Lost Planet were among the first sources of inspiration.

I started learning through online courses, then gained experience directly at work, absorbing knowledge from colleagues. I still enjoy taking new courses today: discovering unfamiliar approaches from other artists sparks imagination and helps me think differently.

As for professional projects, I’ve worked on The Elder Scrolls Online, Call of Duty, and Diablo IV.

In 3D, what fascinates me the most is sculpting and texturing. I love browsing stylized characters on ArtStation, but at the same time, I admire realistic works by artists. This inspires me to search for a balance between expressive shapes and believability.

That’s how I decided to explore creature design – a space where you can exaggerate volumes, experiment with new ideas, and still stay within the boundaries of conditional realism.

Origins of Monkey_Fish_02

This project was created as part of Nikolay Tsys’s creature design course, where the shared theme for students was “monkey-fish.”

I’ve always loved horror movies and believe the scariest parts are not the monsters themselves, but the unknown – what’s hidden in the shadows. I wanted to design a creature that is both intriguing and slightly terrifying. Monkey Fish should evoke a sense of mystery: the viewer doesn’t immediately understand who they are facing or what the creature’s intentions are.

My inspiration came from a primal fear – thalassophobia. I asked myself: What would a deep-sea creature look like if its very appearance had to stir both unease and interest?

Modeling & Sculpting

Before diving into the process, I want to thank Nikolay Tsys for his courses. Thanks to his teaching style, working on a project feels less like studying and more like an adventure.

Here I’ll share my approach, skipping the technical details you can find thoroughly explained in his "CRUG" course.

References

The first step was gathering a reference board. This stage not only helps you find real-life examples and see interesting solutions from colleagues, but also helps you set the direction you want to go in. It becomes your visual compass and prevents you from jumping chaotically between ideas.

Sculpting Stages

The sculpting process went through several iterations:

First read – silhouette exploration. I created 44 options, from which the 2 most promising were selected.

Second read – adding internal forms: eyes, teeth, fins, and the breakdown of large shapes into smaller ones.

Third read – refining secondary forms and working on mid-level details.

Fourth read – micro detailing. It wasn't necessary for the task, but I decided to enhance the expressiveness of the image.

Tips & Tricks

I try to stay in low resolution for as long as possible, squeezing the maximum out of the mesh. Small imperfections create natural noise that can later be developed into details at higher resolution.

All head elements – eyes, teeth, and other parts – were sculpted as a single mesh. For concept design, this saves time, and objects can always be separated later if needed.

Compositing & Final Shot

The final shot was assembled using Marmoset and Photoshop.

In Marmoset, I set up the camera, adjusted the lighting, and worked with materials – skin, dirt, blood, and other surfaces. Each render pass was then exported into Photoshop, where I revealed the needed areas through masks. Sometimes I used blending modes, for example, Screen for overlaying light sources.

After adding color variation, lighting adjustments, and roughness tweaks in Photoshop, I moved on to the most fun stage – photobashing.

Here, I searched for images with interesting textures and colors, blending them into the work with different blending modes. At first, I couldn’t quite find the look I wanted, until an unusual idea came to me: “What if I use holodets?”

Holodets is a savory dish made from cooled meat broth with pieces of meat suspended inside. It may look rather gross, but it tastes great (thanks to my grandmother for introducing me to it!). Its jelly-like structure turned out to be a perfect reference for my creature’s skin.

Finally, I added dirt and a uniform color layer on top and played with blending modes to explore additional color solutions. My favorite was a greenish tint - reminiscent of horror movie filters from the early 2000s, which I absolutely love.

The very last touch was adding noise. This gives the image a cinematic feel and helps smooth out gradient banding.

Conclusion

Working on Monkey Fish was a valuable experience. Approaching it through compositing allowed me to communicate the idea while skipping technical steps like retopology, UVs, and baking. This cut down the time to result and kept the focus on the most exciting parts of the process.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at my workflow.

Find more of my projects on ArtStation, Telegram, and Instagram.